By Angeline Boulley
Walker Books, 2025
U.S. edition
383 pages
978-1-5362-2881-6
Age 14 and older
A gripping thriller told in dual time periods explores the personal and generational trauma of Lucy, who in 2005 has just aged out of the foster care system. When an attorney, Jamie, tracks her down to tell Lucy that her Ojibwe maternal relatives have been searching for her, Lucy is confused and on edge. She also knows that she’s being pursued—the reader doesn’t yet know why—and plans to run, until a pipe bomb badly fractures her leg. Recovering under the care of Jamie and Daunis, who know Lucy’s family, Lucy confronts the fact that her white father never told her the truth of her heritage. Jamie, who works to reunite adopted Native children with their Native family members, teaches Lucy about the Indian Child Welfare Act. Flashbacks recount Lucy’s childhood and adolescence growing up first with her father, who died of cancer; the con-artist stepmother who abandoned her; and a series of foster families where abuse (emotional, sexual) was rampant. Lucy’s final and longest placement is with a farming family where multiple teens, many of whom are pregnant when they arrive—or become pregnant after moving in—live together. Realizing that all on the farm is not as idyllic as it seems, Lucy begins investigating and finds that her past and present are more entwined than she ever imagined. Like Boulley’s other books, this emotional page-turner features a strong, clever female lead and deftly tackles systemic issues affecting Native communities. ©2025 Cooperative Children’s Book Center